Leave Travel Concession

Leave Travel Concession (LTC) is the facility under which a central government employee and the family are reimbursed the travel fare for a journey performed during leave, either to the declared home town or to any place in India. It is governed by the Central Civil Services (Leave Travel Concession) Rules, 1988, framed by the Department of Personnel and Training, and the instructions issued under those rules were consolidated most recently in the department’s master circular, Office Memorandum No. DOPT-1752820096240 dated 3 September 2025, which superseded the master circular of 30 April 2024.

LTC reimburses the fare and nothing else. The cost of getting to the destination and back by the class the pay level carries is paid; hotel, food, sightseeing and the local taxi are not. That single limit, in Rule 13, decides most disputed claims, and it is the reason a trip that cost Rs. 80,000 can produce a reimbursement of Rs. 19,000.

The facility is heavily rule-bound because five separate things have to line up at once: the block year, the definition of family, the pay level, the way the ticket was bought, and the deadline for the claim. Three of those were rewritten after 2022. The disinvestment of Air India killed the LTC-80 fare that a generation of employees had been told to quote. The Department of Personnel and Training then issued a set of frequently asked questions, Office Memorandum No. 31011/07/2025-PP.A-IV dated 1 July 2025, which settled the block-year arithmetic and the fresh-recruit sequence that had been producing recurring grievances and Right to Information applications.

It should not be confused with transport allowance, a monthly commuting allowance, or with travelling allowance, which is for official duty. LTC borrows the class-of-travel entitlements of the travelling allowance rules, with one carve-out, but it is a separate facility for personal travel on leave.

Who the rules cover

The CCS (LTC) Rules 1988 apply to civil servants of the Union, including civilian government servants in the Defence Services, and to three borrowed categories: state government employees on deputation to the Centre, persons appointed on a contract basis, and persons re-employed after retirement. That is Rule 1(3).

Rule 1(4) excludes seven categories: a government servant not in whole-time employment, casual and daily-rated staff, persons paid from contingencies, railway servants, members of the Armed Forces, local recruits in Indian Missions abroad, and anyone eligible for another form of travel concession during leave. The railway exclusion is not absolute. Office Memorandum No. 31011/15/2017-Estt.A-IV dated 27 March 2018 allows a railway employee to avail the All India LTC once in a block of four years under these rules, on conditions, because a privilege pass covers the home town journey and not the rest of the country.

Length of service decides when the facility starts. Under Rule 7(1), a directly appointed civil servant and a contract appointee become eligible only on completing one year of continuous service under the Central Government, tested on the date of the journey rather than the date of the application. Under Rule 2(1), a deputationist, a contract appointee and a re-employed pensioner also need one year of continuous service, plus a certificate from the administrative authority that the employee is likely to serve the Centre for at least two more years for a Home Town LTC and four more years for an All India LTC, counted from the date of joining the central post.

Some kind of leave is compulsory. Rule 7(2) makes LTC admissible during any period of leave, and the department has read that generously: casual leave, special casual leave, child care leave and study leave all qualify, and vacation counts as regular leave for an employee of a vacation department. What does not qualify is a journey squeezed into a weekend or a public holiday with no leave at all, which question 27 of the 2025 FAQ rules out. The exception is a journey by the family alone: where only family members travel, the employee need not take leave.

An officer of an autonomous body deputed to the Central Government is treated as a temporary government servant for the deputation and gets LTC accordingly, which matters because an autonomous body has its own scheme. An employee under suspension cannot avail LTC, though the family retains the entitlement.

The two types of LTC and the block-year system

LTC comes in two types and an employee gets one entitlement in each two-year sub-block, two in a four-year block. Rule 8(a) makes Home Town LTC admissible once in a block of two calendar years, irrespective of the distance between the headquarters and the home town. Rule 8(b) makes All India LTC admissible once in a block of four calendar years, again irrespective of distance, with a proviso: where Home Town LTC is admissible to the employee, the All India LTC availed is in lieu of, and adjusted against, the Home Town LTC available at the time the journey commences.

The master circular of 3 September 2025 states the resulting choice plainly. An employee may take Home Town LTC in both two-year blocks, or take Home Town LTC in one two-year block and All India LTC in the other. The two entitlements are not additional to each other, and an employee who spends the first sub-block on an All India journey has consumed the Home Town entitlement of that sub-block.

The current four-year block is 2026 to 2029, with sub-blocks of 2026-2027 and 2028-2029. The previous block, 2022 to 2025, closed on 31 December 2025.

Rule 10 carries an unused entitlement forward into the first year of the next block, and question 18 of the 2025 FAQ puts it as an automatic one-year extension of every block and sub-block, running to 31 December of the following calendar year. Rule 10 attaches one condition that is easy to miss: an employee entitled to Home Town LTC can carry forward the four-year All India LTC only if the Home Town LTC of the second two-year block within that four-year block has also been carried forward.

The carry-forward creates a real double-benefit year, and the department has confirmed it rather than merely tolerating it. Question 16 of the FAQ works the case: in the calendar year 2026, an employee may avail one unavailed LTC of the 2024-2025 sub-block and one LTC of the 2026-2027 sub-block, as two separate journeys. Rule 9 then decides which block each is counted against, by reference to the block in which the outward journey commenced, even if the return journey falls after the block has expired.

Where the home town and the headquarters are the same place

An employee whose home town and place of posting are the same place is not eligible for Home Town LTC at all, and holds only the All India LTC once in the four-year block. Question 19 of the FAQ states it flatly, on the strength of Office Memorandum No. 31011/4/2007-Estt.A-IV dated 18 May 2015, and Table 1 of the FAQ shows the entitlement for such an employee as All India in the 2018-2021, 2022-2025 and 2026-2029 blocks alike.

Two consequences follow. The employee cannot convert a Home Town LTC under the special dispensation scheme, because there is none to convert, which question 59 confirms. And the double-benefit year works differently: such an employee can hold two All India LTCs in one calendar year, the carried-forward one from the 2022-2025 block and the fresh one of 2026-2029.

The National Capital Region has its own answer. Question 20 records that a town outside Delhi falling in another state of the National Capital Region is not treated as Delhi headquarters, so an employee posted in Delhi whose home town is such a town remains eligible for Home Town LTC.

Who counts as family

Family is defined by Rule 4(d), and the 2025 FAQ restates it as a list of who is in and who is out. In are the spouse; the two eldest surviving unmarried children, including step children and legally adopted children, wholly dependent on the employee, whether residing with the employee or not; married daughters who have been divorced, abandoned or separated from their husbands, and widowed daughters, residing with and wholly dependent on the employee; parents and step parents wholly dependent on the employee, whether residing with the employee or not; and unmarried minor brothers together with unmarried, divorced, abandoned, separated or widowed sisters, residing with and wholly dependent on the employee, provided their parents are either not alive or are themselves wholly dependent on the employee.

Out are parents-in-law, grandparents, the children of a divorced, abandoned, separated or widowed daughter or sister, and any second wife other than one married with the specific permission of the Government.

The residence condition is where the definition has moved. Parents and step parents no longer have to live with the employee, only to be wholly dependent, and the same has always been true of the spouse and children. Siblings still have to satisfy both limbs. Where the spouse and dependent children live away from the headquarters, Office Memorandum No. 31011/5/2015-Estt.(A-IV) dated 31 October 2017 allows their journey from the place of residence, and full reimbursement at the employee’s entitlement for a journey from any place in India to the headquarters and back.

The dependency income ceiling

A family member other than the spouse is wholly dependent only if income from all sources, including pension and any temporary increase in pension, does not exceed the minimum pension plus the dearness relief on it. The minimum pension is Rs. 9,000 a month under the 7th Central Pay Commission, so at a dearness relief rate of 60% the ceiling is Rs. 14,400 a month. The link between dependency and the minimum pension was made by Office Memorandum No. 31011/4/2008-Estt.(A) dated 23 September 2008, which is why the printed rule book still carries the superseded figure of Rs. 1,500.

The spouse is outside the test. The master circular puts the reason in one line: husband and wife serve as one unit for the purpose of LTC, so the condition of dependency does not apply between them. A spouse working in the private sector may draw leave travel allowance from that employer without affecting the government employee’s entitlement.

Age does not defeat a claim by itself. Question 4 of the FAQ confirms that a son or daughter above 25 years of age is still eligible if unmarried and wholly dependent. What defeats a claim is income: a parent drawing a family pension above the ceiling is not a dependant, however close the relationship and however real the support.

Two limits on children apply. The concession is restricted to two surviving children, a restriction in force from 20 October 1997, which does not apply to an employee who already had more than two children before that date, to a child born within one year of it, or where the number exceeds two because a second birth produced multiple children. Separately, no reimbursement is allowed for a child under five years of age who travels by train on a separate berth, and no air fare is reimbursed for a child under five of an employee not entitled to air travel, except on a segment flown under the special dispensation scheme. For a child aged five to under twelve, the actual rail fare paid is reimbursed.

Declaring the home town and the place of visit

The home town is whatever place the employee declares and the controlling officer accepts, under Rule 4(e). The test, settled by Office Memorandum No. 43/15/57-Ests.(A) dated 24 June 1958 and repeated in the master circular, is whether the declared place is the one where the employee would normally reside but for absence on government service. Four criteria are applied in order, each only where the previous one fails: whether the place requires the employee’s physical presence at intervals for domestic and social obligations and has in fact been visited, whether the employee or the joint family owns residential property there, whether near relations reside there on a more or less permanent basis, and whether the employee lived there for some years before entering service.

Rule 5 allows the declared home town to be changed once, and only once, in the entire service. The change needs the sanction of the Head of Department, or of the administrative ministry where the employee is the Head of Department, and only in exceptional circumstances. There is no second change, which makes the declaration recorded in the service book at first appointment one of the more consequential entries in it.

All India LTC needs no home town, but it does need a declaration of a different kind. Under Rule 6, the intended place of visit must be declared in advance to the controlling officer. It may be changed before the journey begins, and after the journey has begun only in exceptional circumstances where the employee establishes that the request could not have been made earlier for reasons beyond their control, on relaxation by the administrative ministry or the Head of Department.

Rule 11 then leaves the family free. The employee and each member of the family may visit different places of their choice during a four-year block, and there is no requirement that the family visit the place the employee visited earlier in the same block. Question 7 of the FAQ goes further: within one two-year block, some members may take Home Town LTC while others take All India LTC.

Fresh recruits: the eight occasions

A person joining central government service for the first time gets eight LTCs in place of the ordinary block cycle, and the sequence is fixed rather than optional. Office Memorandum No. 31011/7/2013-Estt.(A-IV) dated 26 September 2014 sets it out: after completing one year of regular service, the fresh recruit travels on eight occasions on a calendar-year basis, the first three to the home town, the fourth to any place in India, the fifth, sixth and seventh to the home town, and the eighth to any place in India. Six Home Town and two All India, over eight calendar years.

Three features of this scheme cause most of the confusion.

The clock starts at one year of service, not at joining. Question 65 of the FAQ ties the calendar-year count to the date of completion of one year of regular service, so an employee who joined on 1 January 2025 becomes eligible on 1 January 2026 and takes the first Home Town LTC in the calendar year 2026. An employee who joined on 31 December of a year becomes eligible on 31 December of the next year and, that date being the last day of a calendar year, may take the first Home Town LTC on that single day, with the remaining seven running from the following year.

There is no carry-forward. Question 67 is explicit: because a fresh recruit is entitled to LTC every year, the yearly entitlement is not extendable, and an occasion not used in its calendar year lapses with that year. The one-year grace of Rule 10 does not apply here.

The two four-year blocks are personal. They run from the initial date of joining and are not the regular 2026-2029 cycle, and they survive a technical resignation: under Office Memorandum No. 28020/1/2010-Estt.(C) dated 17 August 2016, an employee who resigns within eight years of appointment and joins another government post on technical resignation is treated as a fresh recruit from the date of the initial appointment.

At the end of the eighth occasion the recruit rejoins the regular cycle, and the join is not always clean. Where the ninth year coincides with the start of the second sub-block of a running regular block, the employee is eligible only for Home Town LTC in it, having taken All India on the eighth occasion. Where it coincides with the second year of that sub-block, the employee gets no LTC in that year at all. Table 3 of the FAQ works that case, and the employee it describes, having joined on 1 September 2016, draws nothing in the calendar year 2025 before entering the 2026-2029 block on normal terms.

A fresh recruit whose home town and headquarters are the same place cannot take Home Town LTC, and is left with the fourth and eighth occasions only. A fresh recruit may also opt out and take LTC under the normal rules, in which case the fresh-recruit occasions of that four-year block are forgone.

Travel entitlement by pay level

LTC travel entitlements are the travelling allowance entitlements notified by the Ministry of Finance, with one carve-out: the air entitlement of Levels 6 to 8 of the pay matrix is available for official tour and not for LTC. The entitlements are in Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. 19030/1/2017-E.IV dated 13 July 2017, and the carve-out is in Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 31011/8/2017-Estt.(A-IV) dated 19 September 2017.

The premium trains have their own table. An employee at Level 12 and above travels by Executive or AC First Class on a Premium, Premium Tatkal, Suvidha, Shatabdi, Rajdhani or Duronto train, Levels 6 to 11 by AC 2-tier or Chair Car, and Level 5 and below by AC 3-tier or Chair Car. Travel by Tejas Express, Vande Bharat Express and Humsafar Express was added to the LTC list by Office Memorandum No. 31011/03/2022-PP.A-IV dated 14 January 2025. The flexi-fare charged on Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto trains is reimbursable where the journey is actually performed by those trains, and is not reimbursable to an employee who flies and claims the notional entitled train fare instead.

Where the journey is performed in a class other than the entitled one, question 53 of the FAQ settles the outcome: a higher class is reimbursed at the entitled class, and a lower class at actuals.

Booking air tickets: what changed after Air India

The LTC-80 fare no longer exists. Question 48 of the FAQ records that LTC-80 was a scheme offered by Air India for government officers on LTC, and that with Air India no longer a public sector undertaking the scheme is no more in existence. Any advice built on quoting the LTC-80 fare, including a good deal of published guidance, is describing a ceiling that was withdrawn in 2022.

What replaced it is a procurement rule. Following the Department of Expenditure’s consolidated instructions in Office Memorandum No. 19024/03/2021-E.IV dated 16 June 2022, the Department of Personnel and Training directed by Office Memorandum No. 31011/12/2022-Estt.A-IV dated 29 August 2022 that in all cases of air travel on LTC the ticket is to be purchased only from three authorised travel agents: Balmer Lawrie and Company Limited, Ashok Travels and Tours, and the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation. No agency or convenience fee is payable to them.

The fare rule is the best available fare, which the memorandum defines as the cheapest fare available in the entitled class, preferably on a non-stop flight, within a chosen three-hour slot of the day, with room to optimise within a 10% price band. The same memorandum encourages booking at least 21 days ahead, bars holding more than one ticket for a leg, requires a self-declared justification for a cancellation made less than 24 hours before travel, and provides that no mileage points accrue against travel on government account.

Two later orders softened the paperwork. Office Memorandum No. 31011/11/2023-Estt.A-IV dated 20 October 2023 directed the three agents to display only the cheapest fare and fares within 10% of it in the chosen slot, with the consequence that a booking made on their portals is itself proof that the cheapest fare was taken, which removes the screenshot that the 2022 order had required. It also directed the agents to indicate the word “LTC” on the ticket, and the FAQ adds the warning that the booking must be made under the LTC category and not the corporate category.

Office Memorandum No. 31011/17/2023-Estt.A-IV dated 10 August 2023 went further and removed the compulsion for the employee who is not entitled to fly. Such an employee who chooses to fly anyway is no longer required to book through the three agents, because reimbursement is capped at the actual air fare or the entitled train or bus fare for the shortest route, whichever is less, and any cancellation charge falls on the employee. The compulsion survives in one case: an employee without an air entitlement flying under the special dispensation scheme must still book through the three agents. The same memorandum allowed reimbursement of catering charges on a train ticket where the employee opts for catering, and of cancellation charges levied by an airline or by an agent, on the ground of official exigency only.

A booking made outside the three agents is not automatically dead. Paragraph 1(viii) of the 2022 memorandum authorises the financial adviser of the ministry or department, and in an attached or subordinate office a Head of Department not below the rank of Joint Secretary, to grant relaxation where the booking was made from an unauthorised agent or website in unavoidable circumstances.

Two things remain barred outright. Travel by helicopter is not allowed on LTC, and a break of journey by air is not allowed, a break meaning a stay at a place other than the destination for any purpose other than a connecting flight or a layover.

The special dispensation scheme for the North East, Ladakh and the islands

The special dispensation scheme lets an employee convert one Home Town LTC in a four-year block into an air journey to the North East Region, the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, the Union Territory of Ladakh or the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It runs from 26 September 2024 to 25 September 2026 under Office Memorandum No. 31011/15/2022-Estt.A-IV dated 17 September 2024, the latest in a series of two-year extensions, so an employee planning such a trip should check whether a further extension has issued. Question 56 of the FAQ allows an outward journey that starts just before midnight on 25 September 2026.

The scheme’s value is that it reaches employees with no air entitlement. Such an employee may fly economy by any airline directly from the headquarters to the place of visit, with reimbursement restricted to the actual air fare for the direct journey or the fare admissible under the scheme, whichever is less, the latter being the rail or bus fare from the headquarters to the relevant railhead at Kolkata, Guwahati, Delhi, Amritsar, Chennai or Visakhapatnam plus the air fare onward. The three authorised agents are compulsory for these bookings.

Sikkim counts as part of the North East Region for the scheme, and an employee visiting Sikkim may fly to Bagdogra in West Bengal, the nearest airport, even though Bagdogra is outside the region. Lakshadweep is not covered. An employee whose home town lies in one of the four regions may still convert a Home Town LTC to visit any of the other three. And an employee who has already taken one Home Town LTC in the block may still visit these places on the All India LTC, though not under the scheme, which means that outside the fresh-recruit rules an employee can reach these regions twice in a four-year block, once by conversion and once on All India LTC.

A fresh recruit may convert one of the three Home Town LTCs in a four-year block for such a visit, with one further conversion specifically to visit Jammu and Kashmir or Ladakh.

Advance, claim and the deadlines that forfeit a claim

Rule 15 fixes the advance at four-fifths of the estimated reimbursable amount for the journey both ways, which Ministry of Finance Office Memorandum No. F. 17(4)-E.II(A)/85 dated 8 September 1986 raised to 90%. The family may draw separately where it travels separately.

Four conditions attach. The advance may cover both legs only where the leave, or the family’s anticipated absence, does not exceed three months or 90 days; beyond that it covers the outward journey only, and if the limit is crossed after both legs have been drawn, half the advance is to be refunded at once. The advance is to be refunded in full if the outward journey does not begin within 30 days of its grant. And where the advance was drawn against a booking made up to 60 days ahead, the tickets are to be produced within ten days of drawal, whatever the date of the journey.

The claim deadline depends on whether an advance was drawn: one month from the completion of the return journey where it was, three months where it was not. Rule 15(vi) carries the first and provides that a failure obliges the employee to refund the entire advance in one lump sum, with no recovery in instalments. Rule 14 carries the second and states that a failure entails forfeiture of the claim, with no relaxation permissible.

Rule 14 reads as absolute, and it is not. Office Memorandum No. 31011/3/2015-Estt.A-IV dated 21 December 2023 delegates a power to the ministry or department, with the concurrence of its financial adviser and without a reference to the Department of Personnel and Training, to admit a claim submitted within six months where no advance was drawn, and within three months where an advance was drawn, the latter only if the employee refunds the entire advance in one lump sum with penal interest on the whole amount from the date of drawal to the date of recovery. Outside those windows the claim is gone.

The department has also fixed the other side of the transaction. Office Memorandum No. 31011/3/2015-Estt.(A.IV) dated 18 February 2016 sets the processing limits: five working days each for sanction of leave and for sanction of the LTC advance or leave encashment, ten working days for the administration to verify the claim after the bill is submitted, and five working days each for the drawing and disbursing officer and the Pay and Accounts Office, with three working days of transit time added where the place of posting is away from the headquarters.

Leave encashment along with LTC

An employee governed by the CCS (Leave) Rules, 1972 may encash up to 10 days of earned leave when availing either type of LTC, subject to 60 days in the whole career. Office Memorandum No. 14028/2/2012-Estt.(L) dated 9 February 2015 carries the entitlement and restricts it to one occasion in a block or sub-block where the employee and the family avail the same LTC separately. Office Memorandum No. 31011/4/2008-Estt.(A) dated 23 September 2008 provides that leave encashed with LTC is not deducted from the maximum earned leave encashable at retirement, and that where both spouses are government servants each retains the 60-day career limit.

The encashment is not linked to the number of days of leave actually taken for the journey, or to the type of that leave. The request must be made before the outward journey begins, and question 22 of the FAQ allows it even where the employee ends up with a nil fare claim, on three conditions: the intention to avail LTC was intimated in advance and leave was sanctioned, the encashment request preceded the journey, and the employee gives a self-declaration of having actually travelled to the declared place while not claiming the fare.

Two extensions are worth knowing. An employee who is otherwise not entitled to LTC because the spouse is employed in the Railways or a national airline with privilege passes, and an employee who opts to travel on the LTC of a spouse employed in a public sector undertaking or an autonomous body, remain entitled to the leave encashment. The leave encashment taken with LTC is taxable, unlike the encashment of earned leave at retirement.

What LTC does not reimburse

Rule 13 states the limit: reimbursement does not cover incidental expenses or expenditure on local journeys, and is allowed only on the basis of a point-to-point journey on a through ticket over the shortest direct route. Question 38 of the FAQ applies it to the obvious case, and the taxi from the residence to the airport or the railway station is not reimbursable at either end.

The shortest-route rule has a worked answer for a longer route. Where the journey is performed by a longer route in two different classes, the entitled class rate applies to the corresponding proportion of the shortest route and the lower class rate to the rest, a formula that dates to Office Memorandum No. 43/10/58-Ests.(A) dated 11 April 1958 and still governs.

The last leg has its own rule. Where an employee travels by an authorised mode to the nearest airport, railway station or bus terminal and completes the journey by private transport, reimbursement follows the fare of the entitled public transport for that stretch where public transport exists. Where none exists, Office Memorandum No. 31011/3/2015-Estt.(A.IV) dated 9 February 2017 allows reimbursement at the transfer entitlement for a maximum of 200 kilometres, 100 each way, on the employee’s self-certification, with anything beyond that borne by the employee. A taxi or auto-rickshaw is admissible only between places not connected by rail or road, and only where the service runs point to point on a regular basis with the approval of the state transport authority. A personal or hired vehicle is allowed where the employee or a dependent family member has a disability, on a medical certificate, an undertaking that the authorised mode was not feasible, and a claim no higher than the entitled class fare by the shortest route.

A tour package bought from a travel agent does not qualify. Only tours conducted by the India Tourism Development Corporation, a state tourism development corporation or the IRCTC are admissible, and then only the fare component for a fixed destination by the shortest route, separately certified by the operator. The packages run by the Society for Promotion of Nature Tourism and Sports to Lakshadweep on ships owned by the Lakshadweep Administration qualify on similar terms, transportation charges only.

Service charges paid to a recognised travel service agent for booking a ticket are not reimbursable, though the charges for booking a rail ticket through the Indian Railways website are, and service tax, education cess and similar levies charged on the fare are.

Fraudulent claims

Rule 16 attaches consequences to an LTC claim found to be fraudulent that go well beyond recovery of the money. From the moment the disciplinary authority decides to initiate disciplinary proceedings on a charge of a fraudulent claim, the employee is not allowed LTC until those proceedings are finalised. If they end in any of the penalties specified in Rule 11 of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965, the employee loses the next two sets of LTC in addition to the sets already withheld during the proceedings, and the controlling authority may disallow more than two sets for reasons recorded in writing. A set, by the explanation to the rule, means the Home Town LTC or the All India LTC of Rule 8, so two sets is a full four-year block.

Full exoneration restores the position. The employee is then allowed the withheld concessions as additional sets in future block years, provided they are taken before the normal date of superannuation.

The verification machinery is real. Ministries are advised to have a sample of air tickets verified with the airline against the cost shown on the ticket submitted, and a PNR number has been mandatory on a rail claim since Office Memorandum No. 31011/11/2000-Estt.(A) dated 23 April 2001.

The income-tax exemption

The fare reimbursed under LTC is exempt from income tax at serial number 8 of the Table in Schedule III to the Income-tax Act, 2025, read with Section 11 of that Act and rule 278 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026. Those rules were notified by Central Board of Direct Taxes Notification No. 22/2026, G.S.R. 198(E), dated 20 March 2026, with effect from 1 April 2026. Under the repealed Income-tax Act, 1961 the same exemption sat in Section 10(5) with the conditions in Rule 2B, and a great deal of current commentary still cites those two numbers.

Rule 278(1) covers a travel concession or assistance received from an employer or a former employer, for the individual and the family, for travel to any place in India on leave, and also for travel after retirement or termination of service. The exemption is limited to the amount actually spent, and then by a ceiling that varies with the mode:

Two of those changed with the 2026 rules. The air ceiling used to be the economy fare of the national carrier and is now the entitled class, which matters to an officer at Level 14 and above who flies business class. And the last row used to be worked out by reference to the air-conditioned first-class rail fare, a proxy that generated argument where no railway existed for hundreds of kilometres; the flat Rs. 30 per kilometre replaces it.

Rule 278(2) allows the exemption for two journeys performed in a block of four calendar years, the blocks running from the calendar year 2022, which puts the tax block on the same cycle as the LTC block and makes the current one 2026 to 2029. Rule 278(3) permits a concession not availed in a block to be claimed on the first journey in the first calendar year of the immediately succeeding block, and rule 278(4) provides that the carried-forward journey is not counted against the two journeys of the new block. Rule 278(5) restricts the exemption to two surviving children, and rule 278(6) exempts from that restriction children born before 1 October 1998 and multiple births after one child. Those dates are not the dates in the service rules, where the two-child restriction runs from 20 October 1997, so the two restrictions can bite on different children.

The exemption is available only under the old regime. Section 202(2)(a)(i) of the Income-tax Act, 2025 removes serial numbers 5, 6, 7, 8, 11 and 17 of the Schedule III Table for anyone whose income is computed under Section 202(1), and serial 8 is the travel concession. An employee on the default new regime who receives LTC is taxed on the whole of it. With house rent allowance at serial 11 removed by the same limb, LTC is one of the exemptions that can still tip a calculation towards the old regime, a comparison worked through in old versus new tax regime and income tax for government employees. The particulars are declared to the employer for the purposes of tax deducted at source on Form No. 124, prescribed by rule 205 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026 in place of Form 12BB.

Planning a block: two worked cases

Take an employee past the fresh-recruit period, posted in Bengaluru with a declared home town in Kanpur, in the 2026 to 2029 block. The employee holds one entitlement in 2026-2027 and one in 2028-2029. Taking Home Town LTC to Kanpur in 2026 and All India LTC to a longer family destination in 2028 uses both. If the Home Town LTC of the 2024-2025 sub-block went unused, it can be taken up to 31 December 2026 as a separate journey, so 2026 carries two claims and two encashments of 10 days of earned leave, one against each block. At Level 11 the family flies economy on both, booked through one of the three authorised agents at the cheapest fare in the chosen slot.

Now take a fresh recruit who joined on 1 January 2025. Eligibility starts on 1 January 2026. The first three calendar years, 2026, 2027 and 2028, carry Home Town LTC; 2029 carries All India; 2030, 2031 and 2032 carry Home Town again; and 2033 carries the eighth occasion, All India. Nothing carries forward, so a year skipped is a year lost, and the recruit rejoins the regular cycle in the 2034-2037 block. If the recruit is posted in the home town itself, only 2029 and 2033 are usable.

Common errors

• Quoting the LTC-80 fare. The scheme ended with the disinvestment of Air India, and the ceiling is now the best available fare in the entitled class.
• Assuming an employee posted in the home town gets a Home Town LTC. Such an employee gets only the All India LTC once in four years, and cannot use the special dispensation scheme.
• Treating the Home Town and All India entitlements as additional to each other. A four-year block carries two entitlements in all, one in each sub-block.
• Counting a fresh recruit’s eight years from the date of joining. They run from the completion of one year of regular service, and the type of LTC in each of the eight years is fixed by the 2014 order.
• Expecting a fresh recruit’s unused year to carry forward. It lapses; the one-year grace of Rule 10 applies only to the regular blocks.
• Claiming for a parent or child whose income exceeds Rs. 9,000 a month plus dearness relief. Only the spouse is outside the test.
• Booking an air ticket outside the three authorised agents while entitled to fly. The claim is not automatically lost, but it then needs a relaxation from the financial adviser or a Head of Department of Joint Secretary rank.
• Missing the claim deadline. One month with an advance, three months without, extendable to three and six months respectively by the ministry, with penal interest in the advance case.
• Assuming the exemption survives in the new tax regime. Section 202(2)(a)(i) removes Schedule III serial 8 for anyone taxed under Section 202(1).
• Claiming the local taxi, the hotel or the sightseeing. Rule 13 pays the fare, point to point, by the shortest direct route, and nothing else.

Related Articles

• Travelling allowance (TA)
• Transport allowance
• Leave encashment
• Earned leave
• Casual leave
• Special casual leave
• Child care leave
• Study leave
• Leave not due
• CCS (Leave) Rules, 1972
• CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965
• Suspension
• Technical resignation
• Joining time
• Last pay certificate
• Pay matrix
• 7th Central Pay Commission
• CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016
• Dearness allowance
• Dearness relief
• House-rent allowance
• HRA exemption under Schedule III
• City classification for HRA
• Children education allowance
• Income-tax Act, 2025
• Income tax for government employees
• Old vs new tax regime
• Deductions allowed in the new tax regime
• Section 115BAC and the default new regime
• Standard deduction
• Professional tax
• Form 12BB, now Form No. 124
• Family pension
• Central government pension
• Department of Personnel and Training
• Department of Expenditure
• Central government employees in India
• Central autonomous bodies
• Take-home salary for central government employees
• Income tax calculator
• HRA exemption calculator
• 7th CPC salary calculator

External references

• Department of Personnel and Training
• DoPT instructions on booking of air tickets for LTC
• Department of Expenditure, travelling allowance rules
• Department of Expenditure
• Income Tax Department
• Income tax e-filing portal

References

1. Central Civil Services (Leave Travel Concession) Rules, 1988 (Department of Personnel and Training): Rule 1(3) and 1(4) (application and exclusions), Rule 2 (deputationists, contract appointees and re-employed pensioners), Rule 4(d) and its explanations (family and the two-child restriction from 20 October 1997), Rule 5 (change of home town, once in service), Rule 6 (declaration of the place of visit), Rule 7 (one year of continuous service; leave), Rule 8 (the two types and the two-year and four-year blocks), Rule 9 (counting against blocks), Rule 10 (carry-over), Rule 11 (different places for different members), Rule 12 (entitlement), Rule 13 (reimbursement, point to point by the shortest direct route), Rule 14 (forfeiture at three months), Rule 15 (advance and the one-month claim), Rule 16 (fraudulent claims) and Rule 18 (power to relax).
2. Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. DOPT-1752820096240 dated 3 September 2025, Guidelines on Leave Travel Concession, the consolidated master circular superseding the master circular dated 30 April 2024.
3. Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 31011/07/2025-PP.A-IV dated 1 July 2025, frequently asked questions on the CCS (LTC) Rules 1988, including question 19 (no Home Town LTC where the headquarters and home town are the same), question 48 (the LTC-80 fare no longer exists) and questions 64 to 70 with Tables 3, 4 and 5 (fresh recruits).
4. Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 31011/7/2013-Estt.(A-IV) dated 26 September 2014 (the eight occasions for fresh recruits), and Office Memorandum No. 28020/1/2010-Estt.(C) dated 17 August 2016 (fresh-recruit status preserved on technical resignation).
5. Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 31011/4/2008-Estt.(A) dated 23 September 2008 (dependency linked to the minimum pension plus dearness relief; leave encashment with LTC not deducted from the retirement ceiling) and Office Memorandum No. 31011/4/2007-Estt.A-IV dated 18 May 2015 (headquarters and home town the same place; the National Capital Region).
6. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. 19030/1/2017-E.IV dated 13 July 2017 (travelling allowance entitlements by pay level), read with Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 31011/8/2017-Estt.(A-IV) dated 19 September 2017 (LTC follows those entitlements except air travel for Levels 6 to 8).
7. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. 19024/03/2021-E.IV dated 16 June 2022, and Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 31011/12/2022-Estt.A-IV dated 29 August 2022 (three authorised travel agents, the best available fare and the relaxation power), Office Memorandum No. 31011/17/2023-Estt.A-IV dated 10 August 2023 (non-entitled employees need not use the agents; catering and cancellation charges) and Office Memorandum No. 31011/11/2023-Estt.A-IV dated 20 October 2023 (display of the cheapest fare; the LTC marking on tickets).
8. Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 31011/15/2022-Estt.A-IV dated 17 September 2024 (special dispensation for the North East Region, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, from 26 September 2024 to 25 September 2026).
9. Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 31011/3/2015-Estt.A-IV dated 21 December 2023 (delegated relaxation of the claim time limits, with penal interest where an advance was drawn), Office Memorandum No. 31011/3/2015-Estt.(A.IV) dated 18 February 2016 (processing timelines) and dated 9 February 2017 (the last leg by private transport, capped at 200 kilometres), and Ministry of Finance Office Memorandum No. F. 17(4)-E.II(A)/85 dated 8 September 1986 (advance raised to 90%).
10. Income-tax Act, 2025 (Act No. 30 of 2025), in force from 1 April 2026: Section 11 with Schedule III Table serial number 8 (the value of a travel concession) and Section 202(2)(a)(i) (serial 8 excluded from the new regime); and Income-tax Rules, 2026, notified by Central Board of Direct Taxes Notification No. 22/2026, G.S.R. 198(E), dated 20 March 2026, rule 278 (conditions and ceilings) and rule 205 with Form No. 124.